Early on, while he was great on the few rock songs he put out, pop-oriented R&B/soul seemed to be his forte. When you have orgies of soul and R&B like everything from Prince through 1999, and dips back to it in the later 80s, it was genius. Whether it was "Automatic", "Private Joy" or "if I Was Your Girlfriend", the soul genre was always strong.

But by 1984 and beyond I feel like he was finding himself more and more as a guitarist. Not that he couldn't play before of course, but he really took his guitar out and put it front and center. When you eventually pair an otherwise amazing band down to a five-piece and you are the only guitar - you have to be on point w/ it in a whole new way. The NPG of The Gold Experience, COME, The Undertaker, and Chaos and Disorder is hard proof of that. So those years were definitely him mastering, over and over again, the art of a rock song (the funk and soul infusions notwithstanding). I think he exorcised a lot of demons in the mid-90s on that shaped guitar the way he just shredded the fuck out of it, tossed it around, and fucked everyone up the asshole with it. It was some of his strongest and most-inspired material.

By the aughts and beyond I felt like he was more just doing whatever. There was a focus but no-focus. He was focused on just doing whatever instead of trying to prove himself and kick someone's ass. He wasn't necessarily resting on his laurels but his accomplishments had allowed him some elbow room and freedom just kind of be like "yeah, let's do that because why not?".

And while I'm 50/50 with his post-The Rainbow Children releases, it was always interesting to see what he would come up with next left to no record contract, no conflict (ie: his best inspiration) and no one breathing down his throat for a record.

But ol' boy could always write a pop song that was uncompromising to himself and radio friendly at the same time. "Diamonds and Pearls", "Cream", "Alphabet St.", "U Got The Look", etc.